BOOK REVIEWS

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fully argued account is an excellentaddition to our knowledge of the phe-nomenon of the Christian experienceand sets the stage, skillfully, for thevery research that Barker and his fel-low authors hope to encourage.

JAMES BOUTILIER

Royal Roads Military CollegeVictoria, Be

Sepik Heritage: Tradition and Changein Papua New Guinea, edited byNancy Lutkehaus, Christian Kauf-mann, William E. Mitchell, DouglasNewton, Lita Osmundsen, andMeinhard Schuster. Durham, NC:Carolina Academic Press, 1990. ISBN0-89°89-322-5, xxii + 666 pp, figures,maps, tables, photographs, notes,bibliography, list of contributors,indexes. US$75.

Sepik Heritage is a collection of morethan fifty papers originally presented ata 1984 Wenner-Gren symposium en-titled "Sepik Research Today" held inBasel, Switzerland. The organizersinvited every anthropologist, geogra-pher, art historian, and linguist whohad done research in the Sepik regionof Papua New Guinea (broadly definedas the East Sepik Province, the Ramuarea of the Madang Province, and theSandaun Province excluding the Tele-fomin area) since about 1960 and hadremained active in their discipline. Theresulting group of contributorsincludes Papua New Guineans, Austra-lians, Americans, and Europeans.

Among the stated purposes of thevolume is to document the Sepik as aculture area, a task that includes both

attempted (frequently with the assis-tance and direction of charismaticfigures like Koriam among the Koveand Buliga among the Mengen) toarticulate strategies for gaining controlof the forces of change. In a number ofinstances those strategies involve pro-pitiating ancestral spirits and enlistingtheir support to gain greater power.This mediation between the quick andthe dead raises perplexing questionsabout the position of cultic activitieswithin the Christian experience. Theanswers to these and other questionsare elusive as the contributions to thismonograph suggest, particularly whenwe take into account the horizontaland vertical variations in attitudetoward that experience within andbetween Pacific Island societies.

Barker's aim in editing Christianityin Oceania was to reveal how Christi-anity has become "part of the indige-nous reality: an important aspect ofPacific Islands cultures, one dimensionof the integration of local cultures intoregional and global culture" (22). Fur-ther, he wished to develop "ethno-graphic frameworks that recognize thatpeople live simultaneously in severalkinds of social contexts and that theirreligions are capable of lookinginwards and outwards" (23). He andhis colleagues have succeeded admira-bly in meeting these challenges. ButBarker had one further objective, toisolate other areas of research. AsMacIntyre argues, it remains forresearchers to continue the examina-tion and explanation of "the persist-ence of particular conceptualizationsand beliefs, and their coexistence asdynamic, but often contradictory cul-tural forces" (100). This detailed, care-

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THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. FALL 1993

finding common patterns in Sepik cul-ture and social organization, andreconstructing historical migrations ofpeople and the diffusion of culturalpractices among groups. Part 2 of thebook, "Intercultural Connections," isdevoted to the task of historical recon-struction through examining archaeo-logical evidence of landscape changes(Swaddling), the diffusion of EastAsian words into Sepik languages(Philsooph), art styles (Craig), andcurrent ritual practices to find rites notwell integrated into the local cosmol-ogy (Huber). In addition, severalpapers in other sections try to recon-struct the movement of peoples andpractices by examining myths and oralhistory (Wassmann, Bragge) and cult-house, architecture (Hauser-Schaublin).The result is a rich portrait of bothSepik history and scholarly methods ofreconstructing it. Papers by Forge andFiler deal with similar issues by analyz-ing why particular cultures come todominate their neighbors through mili-tary conquest, through exporting cul-tural complexes, or by attracting immi-grants.

The emphasis on historical relation-ships among Sepik cultures also con-tributes to another aim of the volume,that is, to document and analyze pro-cesses of cultural change. Schuster,Newton, and Kaufmann all suggestthat a historical approach to Sepiksocieties will help the Papua NewGuinean national elite to define PapuaNew Guinean identity in terms ofregional "heritages" and to shape adevelopment strategy suited to NewGuinean tradition and worldview.Toward these ends papers in part 1,"Concepts of the Past," examine local

conceptions of history in general(M. Schuster, G. Schuster, Wassmann)and of particular aspects of local his-tory (Bragge, Scaglion, josephides). Ofparticular interest are papers by Scag-lion and josephides which analyze theimpact of European missionaries andlabor recruiters on local attitudestoward New Guinean culture andtoward introduced institutions. Thesethemes are taken up again in part 3,"The Impact of the West," wherepapers examine the influence of coloni-zation on local cultural identity, socialstructure, and attitudes toward eco-nomic development. High points inthis section include papers by Smithand Allen that analyze ways in whichparticular preoccupations in local cul-ture have influenced reactions to West-erners and development. Part 9, "Con-veying the Past," explicitly addressesways anthropological studies of theSepik can be useful to Papua NewGuineans by describing variousattempts either to help local peoplemarket handicrafts or to make use oftraditional principles in modernendeavors such as architecture. Theremaining sections of the book ("SocialRelations and Authority," "Person andSocialization," "Engendering Gender,""Sickness and Health," "Visual andAural Art") contribute to the picture ofSepik culture and social organization.

Introductions to sections do little topull out regional patterns,.but severalthemes resurface frequently in thepapers. These include: the importanceof specialized ritual knowledge in Sepikpolitical systems; the complexity ofgender relations in societies wheremyth and ritual emphasize sexualantagonism and male dominance but

BOOK REVIEWS

relations between men and womenmay be a great deal more egalitarianand complementary in day-to-day life(Harrison, Losche, Williamson, andForge all make this point); the "flexi-ble" nature of Sepik social structureswhere adoption into groups defined bylineal principles is frequent; and theprofound impact of colonization andmissionization on Sepik peoples (dis-cussed in papers by Allen, Lutkehaus,Gewertz and Errington, Smith, May,Roscoe, and Scaglion, among others).Papers by Harrison, Lipset, andBarlow also point to the importance ofunderstanding local concepts of per-sonhood to analyzing leadership pat-terns in societies where authority islargely personal in character.

The volume is useful in drawingtogether the work of scholars fromvarious disciplines and countries, andparticularly in making available to anAmerican audience at least a briefintroduction to the work of Swiss andGerman ethnographers who publishprimarily in German. The emphasis onregional patterns and relationships isvaluable, as Strathern suggests in hisclosing remarks, in forcing anthropolo-gists to become less "narrow minded"and to look beyond the confines of onesmall group to the ways groups affecteach other and change over time. Thecontributors' concern with what theirwork can give to Papua New Guineansis also commendable. These goals,however, perhaps would have beenbetter served if the editors had made amore rigorous selection among thepapers (for quality and thematic conti-nuity) and had added introductionsdealing with such theoretical issues asthe usefulness of taking a regional per-

spective on cultures; how to define a"culture area" and what such a notioncontributes to our understanding ofculture; and what "cultural tradition"or "heritage" is and how it is linked tocultural or national identity. A discus-sion of this last topic would have beenparticularly helpful given that one ofthe stated aims is to help Papua NewGuineans formulate a national identityby documenting their "heritage."Important questions about definingheritage and determining its role innew multicultural nations like PapuaNew Guinea are raised by SoroiMarepo Eoe who asks how we decidewhat phase of an always-changing wayof life is "tradition" and whether theattempt to capture such a "tradition" inmuseums is a Western practice of littleconcern to Melanesians. Tuzin sug-gests that preserving "heritage" may dolittle besides attract tourists to theSepik and also that "authentic culture"consists less of a catalogue of precon-tact practices and artifacts than in emo-tional and intellectual orientationsacquired in childhood. The volume asa whole would have been improved bygreater discussion of these and otherissues in introductory essays.

KAREN BRISON

Washington University